Picking Up The Pieces
by rosannahstar
Summary: Soda's experiences in Vietnam have caused his life to be scattered into so many painful pieces that he doesn't know where to start fitting them back together again... Will his brother's be able to help him begin healing or will he push them away first?


**Author's Note: This is just a taster chapter to see if this story proves popular or not. I hope it does but I am completely open to any constructive criticism you can give me. I hope you enjoy it… **

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders or any of the characters apart from any OC's I have in it.**

_Her eyes were the last thing I remember before blacking out… I don't think I'll ever forget the way the sparkle of hope left them long before the final striking blow to the back of her head was delivered and her small body fell to the ground lifeless. As I saw her body lay in the long grass I thought about how much more frail she looked in death than in life. She looked younger too… Though I'd always known that people looked younger while they were asleep it had never been truly proved to me before now. I remember whenever I looked at Pony while he was asleep, his calm and peaceful face illuminated only by the moonlight as it poured into the window beside our bed, he looked much younger than his fourteen years. I'd never given it much thought until I saw her but a small part of me wondered that if I died in Vietnam, in the middle of this disgusting war ground, I would never see Pony again. I wound never see him grow any older and in my memories he would always and forever be a child. My thoughts were already beginning to cloud over by that point but for some reason I could not tear my vision away from the horrific scene in front of me. A distant part of me suddenly thought about how beautiful she was or more precisely how beautiful she probably was before we arrived. Now the smooth and delicate skin of her face was littered with scars, some old that had scarred over but were clearly badly infected. One large one across her cheek was covered in dirt and had something crawling around the outside of it that looked suspiciously like a maggot. I felt vomit rising in my throat. Even though I'd seen much worse in my time in the army this one hit me like a giant truck. Maybe it was because when I saw her I thought instinctively of Pony. Or maybe it was because she was around the same age as Pony had been when I left almost a year ago. It felt like longer…_

_I knew that many of my fellow soldiers wrote when their year ended on their helmets but personally I'd never wished to know. I looked at it as false hope. By then I really began to wish I had. Being in Vietnam messed with your sense of time and made every day seem like a week. After a while it became almost impossible to think about how long I'd been there. The fact that we were almost always on the field shooting at the North Vietnamese soldiers or brutally massacring civilians didn't help either. Sometimes a day would seem to carry on forever like an endless torture, but sometimes a day would just pass in a blur of bright colours, loud explosions and pain. Sometimes when I awoke I couldn't even remember what I'd done the previous day. For the first time I understood how Pony had felt when he had nightmares. During the time I was awake I felt so many images imprint themselves in my mind that I knew I could never get rid of them completely and I was almost constantly terrified, though I pretended not to be. At night time however, it was a different story. I'd wake up in a cold sweat or screaming and not even remember what it was that scared me so much… I wish I'd given Ponyboy more help for them while he was having them, because I finally understood how horrible a feeling it is when you wake up afraid but not entirely sure why. It's almost like seeing a shadow out of the corner of your eye and knowing that it's going to hurt you but you're not entirely sure what it is._

_I looked at her once again and this time I noticed the fresher wounds on her face. There was a single deep cut on her temple and the blood ran freely down her face and onto the grass where she was lay. It shone in the slight speckles of light that still managed to shine through the dust and smoke from the countless explosions. It was bright red and it stood out in contrast to the grass that was once emerald green and soft but was now black, charred and… Dead. The blood seemed to pour in a never ending current and I wondered how the human bod could carry so much blood. The back of her head seemed strangled untouched but there was a small cut beneath the hair The only reason I knew it was there was because the hair was matted together in thick clumps and it was dyed slightly darker than the rest of her hair. It was strange to believe that the countless cuts and bruises all over her slight frame hadn't killed her and that in the end it was the smallest cut to the back of the head which ended her painfully short life. I thought despairingly of Johnny and Dallas for the first time in a long while and I thought about how their lives had been cruelly ended before they'd really had a chance at life. Here the only way you could get by without mental scars that could never be healed was to be thick skinned like Dallas was and to believe that every life you take was from a worthless, beast of a human. However, I don't truly believe that it is possible to be like that without losing every single piece of humanity you have left. I used to look at Dally admiringly and wonder how he could be so unfeeling and still care for Johnny as much as he did. I think after a while though I began to understand that Dally's tough exterior was just an act that he put on so he wouldn't get hurt. His reaction to Johnny's death had proved that to me and the helpless look on his face as the fuzz pulled the trigger on him just proved it further. I truly now believe that it's useless to try and lose every ounce of humanity you possess because if you didn't care you wouldn't be fighting so hard to stay alive… _

_I often wondered what Darry would do if it was him here in Vietnam and not me. I would never wish being here on anyone, especially my older brother but when I was younger I always looked up to Darry and wanted to copy everything he did. I believed that if I did whatever Darry would do I'd survive. It gave me a great deal of comfort almost as if he was right next to me as the bullets were fired and bodies dropped to the floor like flies, mutilated and disfigured. I had a friend here called Eric when I first arrived. He had only five months to go when I arrived with twelve months. We slept in beds next to each other and we talked to each other, fought close to each other when we could, and even though I'm ashamed to admit it we got high together. Even though I'd never thought that I'd never do it, it helped ease the pain considerable and it drained all tension until it left you at ease no matter the situation you were in. Darry probably would have killed me had he known…_

_Eric was a brave fighter and always optimistic. I regret not asking him more questions about his life but he knew everything about me. He knew about my brothers, friends, likes and dislikes but I didn't know a thing about him. Three months into his last five months we were in the field together. We were just supposed to be checking for booby traps but it soon turned into a full out assault that no one could have expected. They came in huge numbers but we had all the weapons. We killed most of them and the ones that were left retreated into the security of the trees but the cost to us was also great. Six people I knew died that day and Eric was just one of them. The fact that will always haunt me is that I actually saw it happen. I'd just managed to fight my way back over to cover him when a bullet came lying towards us. There was no way to tell who the owner of the gun was in all the mayhem but their aim was dead on. It hit Eric straight in the chest killing him instantly and what made it worse was that as he fell his helmet came off his head and another bullet hit him through the head as if checking that he was dead. His body fell out of sight and I never saw it again but after the battle I found the helmet. I assumed it was his because it had the same amount of days on it but I wanted to believe it was as well because it felt nice to have a little something of him. I hid it under my bed just in case someone tried to take it away from me but I already figured everyone knew and nobody said anything. I think that was the first time I cried… Eric was gone and those two months he had left would remain forever as a memory of what life he could have returned to. _

_Staring at the body of the girl a memory floated into my mind that I hadn't thought of in years. Darry and I were playing in the living room and mum and dad were out. Pony was asleep in his bedroom and we were trying to be as good as we could by staying quiet and letting him sleep. Pony was just five back then and I was eight. Darry had just turned twelve and had begun trying to act like a good and responsible big brother for me and Pony. I suppose we didn't make that role easy for him though, especially me. I always enjoyed playing with matches as a child. I suppose every child goes through that at one age but I never quite understood that it was dangerous to play with them until that day. Darry had his back turned and I pulled out the matches from under my shirt where I'd hidden them after Dad had left them on a shelf a little too low. I knew I wasn't allowed them so I hid them well out of everyone's sight but that day I just wanted to play with them too much to be careful… I pulled out a match and with shaking hand I lit it and watched it intently, in a sort of trance as the flame danced and flickered. Suddenly I was broken from my concentration when Darry put a hand on my shoulder. _

"_What are you doing? Mum and dad are going to go mental!" Darry yelled a little too loud. _

_I was startled and tried to turn to face him but dropped the match. All I remember then was a searing pain in my leg and the taste of smoke filled my lungs making me gag and scream. Everything after that was a blur. Distantly I could hear Darry crying out my name and then something covered me and everything went dark…_

_I learned afterwards that when I dropped the candle it set my jeans on fire and my leg was severely burned but thankfully not too bad to stop me from walking or leave scars. It would have been worse I was told by my frantic mum and dad when I woke in the hospital. Darry had wrapped my leg in the blanket we had been near and had suffered fairly bad burns to his arms in doing so. Mum told me when they came home they saw a crying Darry nursing his arms with me unconscious on his lap. He'd though I was dead… He visited me as soon as the doctor said he could and fell asleep on the chair next to my bed holding onto my hand. That day I vowed that not only would I never play with matches again but I would never cause Darry so much worry again. _

_Suddenly, I wished Darry was here with me so bad I felt like bawling my eyes out until I couldn't cry anymore but I pushed those feelings as far back as they could go. However, as the memory faded so did the majority of my vision. I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my abdomen and my mind lost all focus it had left. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the girl's eyes staring up at me. They held an almost accusing look but it was empty with no force behind them. They were dead eyes... But not only that, they were clouded over and completely blind. She'd been blinded in an explosion and had been running around presumably for help and as she'd ran into me I'd whirled round thinking she was an enemy and delivered the killing blow. I was a soldier and I would never be arrested for killing the girl. It would be called self- defence or people would ignore it like it never even happened. Other people had done worse after all… But I couldn't help thinking that I should be arrested._

_I fell._

_My mind went completely blank._

_I was floating in an endless torrent of pain._

_I was gone. _

_Then there was a bright white light…_

**Just so you know this is not a one shot. I will continue and I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Please review! I'd really appreciate it :)**


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